


Charcoal

by laetificat



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 01:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16461125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laetificat/pseuds/laetificat
Summary: Quick and tiny Arthur gen.





	Charcoal

Arthur learns to draw from a whore in Wilmington. Dutch buys him the opportunity as a 16th birthday present. She teaches him some of the ways a man can pleasure a woman, for which he is grateful; afterwards, he spots a sketchbook on her dresser and asks her if he can look. She takes it out of his hands, but relents, perhaps seeing honesty in his eyes.

He traces the charcoal figures with a gentle finger: mostly drawings of the other girls, some posed, others caught laughing, bathing; a quick sketch of the town’s marshal leaning against the bar downstairs; a bowl of fruit; a horse. She offers to teach him the basic forms for another dollar, to cover the rest of the night. From her he learns how to dictate with areas of shadow instead of line; how to capture the shape of what you’re seeing rather than what you expect to see. She tells him he’s got a natural talent and sells him a few sheets of paper and a stick of charcoal for another dollar. 

Dutch tells him later that he got scammed with his pants up given the cheap quality of the paper, but a few weeks later hands Arthur his first proper journal, cautioning him to only record what’s necessary – and nothing incriminating, in case it should fall into the wrong hands.

Arthur takes him at his word, as he does with every phrase that falls from Dutch’s lips during those days. He records the plants and animals they meet, then the landscapes they pass through, journal propped up against the horn of his saddle, blowing on his fingers to keep them warm. It makes him feel something to know that he might be the first man to outline those peaks and ridges. Makes him feel like he’s doing something worthy, underneath the less worthy business of the gang. Eventually he starts writing down some of his thoughts beside the sketches, and the journal becomes a little piece of his heart and mind, captured and kept safe forever between the stiff leather covers.


End file.
